I've been thinking a lot lately about what "family" means as an aromantic person, especially when family is so fundamentally tied to the concept of romantic relationships.
The level of amatonormativity in media is exhausting—it feels like a tired trope that the world won't let go of.
I reflect on generational rifts in queer communities and my fears of someday becoming one of the "problematic" queer folks.
I reflect on some long-held existential fears of being abandoned by my friends as I grow older.
I talk about the "in-between spaces" between my neurodiversity and my romantic orientation and just how interconnected those aspects of my identity are
I use Coyote's concept of a convergent-divergent spectrum to describe some feelings about my identity I've been trying to piece together for a while.
Where I talk about QPRs, relationship anarchy, how I personally find QPRs less useful of a concept than I used to.
I used to use the split-attraction model to conceptualize my romantic and orientation. Here's why I don't anymore, why the SAM never really made sense for me in the first place, and where I think the SAM fails a lot of aro folks.
When I talk about my identity to someone outside one of my communities, I'm implicitly nominating myself as an ambassador to that community. What are my responsibilities when representing the communities I'm a part of? What about when some people in that community disagree with me?
I've noticed a pattern in a lot of the "supportive" messaging I recieve from neurotypical people as an autistic person. It's genuinely well-intentioned, but also deeply ableist. They think autism is an obstacle to be overcome, not who I am.